Tim Dowling: how not to interview eminent scientists – a control freak’s guide

The transition to owning an electric car is in its final phase: our electricity supplier is set to install a smart meter in conjunction with a special tariff that will allow us to charge the car cheaply in the dead of night. After that, all I have to do is live long enough to see a return on my considerable investment.

In the meantime – as sometimes happens in the course of my work – I need to interview some eminent scientists. In my experience eminent scientists are easy to reach – they tend to be attached to academic institutions that readily provide their contact details – and surprisingly willing to spend an hour explaining their work to a moron. But there is always a period – the long interval after I’ve emailed four or five, and before any of them have answered – that I begin to suspect a conspiracy of silence. What is it, I think, about my oily emails that they don’t like?

When I go to bed that night, I still haven’t heard back from anybody. I wake at 7am and immediately check my phone: nothing.

“Why are the scientists ignoring me?” I say.

“What?” my wife says, looking up from her own phone.

“Nothing,” I say. “A work thing.”

“The smart meter man just texted to say he’s coming between 12 and 12.30,” she says. “Will you be in?”

“Yes,” I say. “I will be here, trying to find five other scientists.”

Four hours later I’m sitting in my office shed, composing another oily email, when my wife leans in the door.

“I’m popping out,” she says. “Don’t forget about the man.”

“What?” I say, “Yeah, no, fine.”

I spend some time staring into space. When I look at my computer screen, I see a new email in my inbox, from an eminent scientist: he is happy to be interviewed, he says, but it needs to be in the next 45 minutes. I check the time difference: five hours. He is evidently up very early in an effort to accommodate me.

Of course! I reply. I arrange a Zoom meeting in 30 minutes. I track down the notepad with my questions on it. I move my laptop to its optimal Zoom meeting angle, so my head is framed by bookshelves. I lay my phone on the desk to record the meeting, as a backup. I review the scientist’s biography on his institution’s website. Then I remember the meter guy. I ring my wife.

“Where are you?” I say.

“Walking towards the front door,” she says.

“Oh good,” I say. “So you’ll be here to let the man in?”

“I’m here now,” she says.

“Because it turns out I will be interviewing an eminent scientist at that time,” I say.

“OK,” she says. “I’ll deal with it.”

I adjust my chair. I check my questions again. I look toward the house in time to see a figure backlit by the open front door: the meter man arriving, exactly on time.

I enter the Zoom meeting space five minutes early, and centre my head on the screen. One minute before the scheduled start time, I begin recording on my phone. All the elements of my control-freakery are falling into place.

Suddenly my desk lamp goes off. At the same time, my computer screen dims, and the picture of me freezes. The wifi signal is gone.

I have no memory of the next 30 seconds, but they are captured for posterity by the automated transcription service I use:

Speaker 1: What is happening?

Speaker 1: Oh my God, He’s turned off the electricity!

Speaker 1: Holy shit! Um. Come on! What do I do?

I stand up and run into the house, where I find a man in a polo shirt bearing the logo of my new electricity provider, with a length of cable in his hand.

“Did you just turn off the electricity?” I say.

“Yes,” he says.

“For how long?” I yell.

“About 40 minutes,” he says.

“Fuck!” I scream. This is to be our only interaction.

I run back to my office. After three further minutes of blind panic, I realise I can access the internet via my phone’s personal hotspot. I re-enter the Zoom meeting, where the eminent scientist is waiting patiently.

The recording on my phone does not pick up my laboured breathing, or the thudding of my heart. All you can hear is my apology, followed by the hour-long interview, punctuated by the steady pinging of new emails arriving: all the other scientists, getting back to me.